An electronic device may include an enclosure in which the hardware components of the electronic device are housed. The hardware components may include a processor, a storage component, a motherboard, a graphics card, a sound card, etc. The electronic device may have a plurality of programs or applications (i.e., software) installed. For example, the programs may be stored in the storage component and executed by the processor. The programs may utilize any of the hardware components that are available. The electronic device may further have a plurality of hardware/software programs (i.e., firmware) installed.
There are many different ways to secure the electronic device from being improperly accessed with regard to the hardware, the software, the firmware, and a combination thereof. One example in securing the electronic device is a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The TPM includes a secure cryptoprocessor securing hardware, software, and/or firmware by utilizing cryptographic keys. The cryptographic keys may be securely created such as based on one or more Platform Configuration Registers (PCR) that are substantially incapable of being duped or overridden. Using these cryptographic keys, the hardware/software/firmware may be utilized when the electronic device has been verified as secure. Accordingly, data stored in a storage component may be sealed from access and unsealed using these cryptographic keys.
The electronic device may be subject to different types of malicious attacks to access data stored in the storage component of the electronic device. For example, malware is a software based attack to control various components of the electronic device and access data (e.g., privileged data). In another example, physical tampering to open the enclosure of the electronic device to access the hardware components may allow the data stored in the storage component to be directly accessed. When physical tampering is performed, purely software based security measures may be insufficient to prevent the data from being accessed. In fact, the physical tampering may also affect the manner in which the TPM may provide its features of securing the electronic device.